Kean to make a case for the defence

Blackburn manager Steve Kean will focus on tightening up his defence as chances start to run out for his struggling side to save themselves.

A last-gasp 3-2 defeat at home to 10-man Liverpool on Tuesday kept Rovers in the bottom three and they face a difficult final month, starting with a trip to Swansea on Saturday.

"We need to go into every game looking to improve, certainly on set-plays because we look as if we can score on a set-play at almost every opportunity but are looking a bit wobbly when set-plays come into our box," Kean said.

"We will be looking at when we have got a set-play we need to be more solid behind it so we can't get done on the counter-attack.

"But we can't go into games thinking we need to score four or five goals to win, we need to close the back door and defend better - it is as simple as that."

Four successive league defeats have seen them concede 10 goals, but it was the manner of those against Kenny Dalglish's side, who were 2-0 up early on before being pegged back, which frustrated Kean.

"I thought the first five or six minutes we were okay - we were better than we were against West Brom (Saturday's 3-0 loss) - but on the first goal we got done on the counter-attack," he said.

"But I always felt we could get back into the game and once we got the second goal we had wave after wave of attacks and I felt we were going to win."

Rovers trailed to two early Maxi Rodriguez goals, but they managed to get back on level terms via a header and penalty from Ayegbeni Yakubu before Andy Carroll snatched victory with a header in the second minute of added time.

"They (the players) are gutted. We just need to pick ourselves up, we can't feel sorry for ourselves," said Kean.